Red Doors - the movie

My friend Catherine Park is the producer of an Asian-American indie movie that's making waves at festivals. Red Doors is just finishing its theatrical realease and is coming out on DVD November 14th. Add it to your Netflix queue!

It's been quite a Cinderella story for the Red Doors movie, and the filmmakers involved seem very sweet and hardworking. They even got a TV spinoff, and though it wasn't picked it up this season they've continued to build on their successes and sell out screenings across the country. Very cool. Here's their Myspace page to add them as a friend.

Halloween

As you guys know, I'm a horror buff. Halloween is a fun time for me because the cable channels play scary movies non-stop.

Even though there's a glut of horrors to choose from, most of them fall into the derivative category of prurient gore. You know the story by heart. Six sexed up teenagers get stranded in a (blank), where a (blank) kills all of them but the female virgin, who escapes, mind-effed for life. These kind are so boring they make me want to hurt myself. Although if you get stuck watching one of these with a group, you can make it a little more fun by all writing down what order the characters will perish in. Bonus points for how.

The horror movies we remember usually fit Wes Craven's definition of thriller-horror (Horror is fear of damage to the body, thriller is fear of damage to the soul). That's Se7en, Rosemary's Baby, The Sixth Sense, The Wicker Man, The Shining, Halloween (he's not just an anonymous slasher, he's her retarded brother whose eyes were literally forced to see through), The Excorcist, etc. You know, the ones people talk about and remember.

So it's hard to find a GOOD horror movie by that definition. One that's more than gore with no psychological scares.

If you're looking to be scared I've found some obscure, well-made films I can recommend that you may not have seen. They're all available on Netflix.

May
Ginger Snaps (the whole trilogy)
Love Object
Hellraiser VII: Deader
Hard Candy
Tremors IV: The Legend Begins
Nip/Tuck Season 2
White Noise
The Mothman Prophecies
Frailty
Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula

And the oldies you may not have seen:
Zombie
Ms. 45
Black Christmas
The Wicker Man
Stir of Echoes
Manhunter
The Watcher in the Woods
The Lost Boys

Personally I'll be watching Slither and The Woods this weekend.


And from this month's Creative Screenwriting:
All facts considered, horror is essentially defined by what scares a given society at a specific time, a fact made all the more relevant by the influx of international nightmares on American cinema screens. Writer Stephen Susco puts the cultural difference into perspective as he considers the eponymous force from his script for The Grudge. "This is so much bigger than the characters. It is such human hubris to think they can stop it." The key theme of inevitability pervades Japanese supernatural horror. As Susco succinctly puts it: "In Asian horror, you're just fucked."

In constructing a modern horror tale, "The most important idea is character empathy," explains Susco. "A lot of scary movies go wrong by not making the horror personal." Tracy Letts, who adapted his stage play Bug into a feature film for Exorcist director William Friedkin, agrees. "Characters that, on some level, the audience can identify with have a lot to do with a successful story." Susco notes that any number of slasher films present characters the audience couldn't care less about, while "the horror films people point to as the best are the ones where you can really empathize with, and relate to, the character."

Like what you just read? Read Jason Davis' full piece on Writing the Horror Film in the latest issue of Creative Screenwriting Magazine, on sale now!

Hollywoodland

I'm at an all-day film seminar AGAIN yesterday and today (after last Saturday and Sunday) so if you're writing or calling me that's why I'm MIA.

Had to give you a quick update though that I sat next to Faye Dunaway yesterday...Pretty cool.

Also hanging out with my buddy Catherine Park. Check out her rad magazine Giant Robot!

100 Things

It's been brought to my attention that I have to change number 20 on my list.

It's true. For the first time, I puked from drinking.

It was a worthy cause - my old friend Sacha's 40th birthday. Seven of us in a limo, mixing five kinds of alchohol. By the time we got to the very Hollywood Hotel Figuero, I was laying across the toilet wondering if Lindsay Lohan had "prayed" there, too. In true rockstar style, it was barely 7 pm.

Ironically, I popped back up within an hour of drinking, stone cold sober and pert as a nineteen year old. No headache the next day, either. My compatriots did not fair as well.

I've always had a mortal fear/distaste of upchucking that's led me to great lengths to avoid it, and apparently a lot of unnecessary pain. In the case of wrongful alchohol consumption, I must now highly recommend it. Beats hangovers and days of the runs.

Back it Up, Baby!

Great recommendation from Amanda Brouda for a free Backup service. Make sure you give her credit when you sign up!

Interesting

I'm not sure what this daily photo project is saying, but something about it stuck with me so I decided to share. If nothing else, it's a testament to how a few minutes of creative work a day can pay off bigtime.



Also found this quote in Step Inside Design magazine:

There's a helluva distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.
- Dorothy Parker

ebert

So wonderful to see Ebert back, and with such a feminist review! I'd begun mourning him already. Still not convinced that he's going to be here much longer, but it touched my heart to hear his "voice" again.

Here's Mora Stephens, director of Conventioneers, with Roger at the Spirit Awards. I'm exceedingly happy for her that she had the opportunity!

Conventioneers

The amazing, Spirit-Award winning film Conventioneers opens today in New York City!

Not only is it a fabulous, timely film, but it is my debut as an associate producer...so please go check it out!

If you don't live in New York, explore the website I built for now and check back to learn when it's coming to your town.



And good luck to Mora and Joel as they take a bite of the apple!

Ghost Hunters

The most boring TV show I have ever sat through. Apologies to anyone I know who makes it, but crikey...

Evolution of a Model

Sad News

Miriam Engelberg has passed. If you have a friend with cancer, buy her book and pass it along.

Wrong and Horrifying

Wonder what Aunt Twisty would have to say about this performance art.

LA Tips

The life-altering IMPACT self defense class (known in noCalifornia as Model Mugging) is starting again. I can't strongly enough urge every female to take it:

New Basics class is starting: October the 29th from 1:00 to 5:00.

Please forward to anyone you know that might be in to it. They can contact maureen@absolutionla.com to register.

Be sure to watch the fight clip at http://www.impactpersonalsafety.com/

And...

AFI.com still has tix left for the David Lynch screening on Monday November 6th at 7 pm in the Cineramadome (yeah, boiii!). AFI may well have the only theatrical screenings of his brand new "Inland Empire", as the maestro is taking on our outdated model and distributing himself. So get your butt over there to see it, just in case it never sees the dark light of a movie theatre again.

Added bonus: the 179 minute movie was shot on a Sony PD150, so if you're like me and OWN one, you must go see what a master can do with the technology. Go go movie democratization!

And for you non La La land readers, if you haven't seen Okay Go's music videos, it's worth the trip to You Tube. Also check out Tea Partay and BACKSTABBER: Dresden Dolls VS Panic! At The Disco. The future of advertising is here, and it's youtube.

New Insight

I have an intuitive friend who heard my astrological signs at the party and explained to another friend it meant I was "oversensitive and saw things the way they really are."


Hmmm. By George, I think she's right. For instance, I might have noticed one friend was upset when leaving the party and wondered if I'd done something wrong, when she was actually upset about a juicy situation at the party I had nothing to do with.

I wonder if my Catholic upbringing helps steep my horoscope in guilt...

New Fishie

I've started a new blog called SuperFishies to keep track of our sightings. Let me know whenever you have a Fishie and I'll post it!

I got one Saturday from Mom and just blogged about it!

Superstar

Congratulations to my good buddy Annette Reid for her three-scene gig on "Desperate Housewives" last night. She was the red-head mom who told Felicity's character the dirt on the star pitcher!




And here's how I feel after throwing another one of Brenda's famous parties this weekend:


I'm realizing I just don't have the temperment for big gatherings anymore. It's like a wedding: you can't go more than a few feet without someone talking to you, so you never finish a conversation, pee, or eat, and by the time it's over you realize there's a dozen people who never came up and talked to you and that the food's gone.

I prefer my intimate 5-7 people gatherings that are informal, but this is Nurse Sis's thing. She loooves being the hostess of huge gatherings, and always does it with great generousity and style.

I'm also seeing how little tolerance I have for my friends who don't care that it was just the one year anniversary of mom's death. Some unexpected people were lovely and touching about it and gave great advice and support at the party (it was pretty obvious I wasn't myself), while a disappointing amount of supposedly close friends ignored it or tried giving me guilt trips because they wanted something from me at a time I told everyone I was going to be curled up on the couch for a few weeks.

There are the people who called or sent flowers and well-wishes and tried to help, and there are the people who stuck out as users. It's very interesting how me needing support culls the herd again.

Everybody Back on the Bus

Okay, I've decided I'm ready to start posting again, and that I'm going to be sentimental and keep the old blogger digs instead of upgrading to typepad. For future reference, if you just bookmark me at "http://www.KidSisInHollywood.com" you'll always find me.

So here's the deal. I stopped posting for three reasons.

1. I was overwhelmed by work (amazing things happening I will post about soon)
2. I was overwhelmed by choices (when the Typepad move didn't go smoothly and many of you didn't like the idea, it threw me into confusion and nonaction...a state that sentimental choices have had me in ever since Mom died. Sound familiar to any other grievers?
3. Lynne White died.

Number three is really the most important. I didn't realize how sick Lynne was until the third week of August. By then I'd had her on my daily list of phone calls since the 20th, but never made it in time. I can't tell you how much her daily absence from this site makes me never want to blog again. Or how guilt-ridden I feel for not contacting her before her death, or her lovely daughter Jill afterwards.

But reactions to death and our inapropriate behavior are strange things...even now I'd still rather stew and feel like crap then email Jill to apologize and ask how she's doing and extend my help. I guess the first step is admitting what's going on in my effed up head, so maybe this post will help some of you going through similarly bizarre grief patterns.

I can say Lynne was a lovely painter and wrote an adorable children's book, so if you miss her positive, loving presence as much as I do please go support the art that helps her live on in our memories.

Also, I'm beginning a FISHIES blog for Mom and Lynne. Just starting it now, but I hope it grows into a collection of stories from people who've received hellos from loved ones who've passed.